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But right now the team’s early-season struggles may be hardest on manager John Gibbons, who was tossed from his second straight game on Thursday, as the Jays fell 5-3 to the New York Yankees.

The usually easy-going Texan was ejected in the seventh inning by second-base umpire Jeff Kellogg, the on-field crew chief, after arguing an overturned call at first base. It came barely 24 hours after he was thrown out arguing balls and strikes in Baltimore.

On Thursday, the disputed call came when New York DH Ben Francisco bunted a ball which Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie fielded and threw low to Edwin Encarnacion at first. Encarnacion stretched, just barely squeezing the ball with the end of his glove, and Francisco was called out by first-base umpire Chad Fairchild on the bang-bang play.

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The four umpires then huddled in the infield and Fairchild reversed his call, claiming that Encarnacion had actually trapped the ball on the ground.

Gibbons raced out of the Jays’ dugout to jaw with Kellogg and Fairchild, eventually spiking his cap in disgust — the flagrant foul that earned his ejection.

“I didn’t see a bobble,” Gibbons said after the game, adding that his bigger concern was that there had been no appeal on the play by Yankees manager Joe Girardi. “I know there’s times where you get together and talk about calls. I just didn’t think that somebody that wasn’t involved in making the call would do that, unless there was an appeal — then you get together.”

Encarnacion said he believed he had fielded the play cleanly.

“Yes, I was sure I had the ball,” he said. “I don’t see why they think I bobbled the play.”

Video replay showed Encarnacion did in fact catch the ball cleanly and Fairchild’s original call of the play was correct.

But after the game, Kellogg insisted that the ball had been trapped against the ground.

“We saw the ball on the ground, where the ground was assisting the ball staying in the glove while the runner went over the base, and it was after the fact that he pulled it up,” the veteran umpire said. “You’ve got to have secure possession in the glove or the hand. That ball is resting on the ground with the glove wrapped around the top of the ball.”

Kellogg said the decision was made unanimously by the entire crew. “If we see something that we think is incorrect, we get together, talk about it, make sure everybody else has the same thing, and then we go from there. Which is what we did.”

In his daily media sessions, Gibbons has been at a loss to explain his team’s early-season sluggishness and surprising struggles in every facet of play. It’s clear the team’s slow start — they have won just three of their last 10 games — has caught him by surprise, as much as anyone.

But Thursday’s game didn’t turn on the disputed play at first. The Jays got out to an early lead — thanks to Encarnacion’s third homer in as many games and Lawrie’s first of the season — but couldn’t muster much else against Yankees right-hander Hiroki Kuroda after the second inning.

And in the homer friendly confines of Yankee Stadium, the long ball can taketh away as much as it giveth. All the night’s runs were scored on home runs and Jays starter Mark Buehrle was burned by three of them, including a three-run shot by Robinson Cano in the third, which gave the Yankees the lead.

Vernon Wells continued to hammer his former team, and Buehrle in particular. He hit his sixth home run of the season — half of which have come against the Jays — off Buehrle in the second to draw the Yankees within two. Wells is now 24-for-50 vs. Buehrle lifetime. In all, Buehrle allowed five runs on seven hits through 5.1 innings, but was outclassed by Kuroda, who held the Jays to three runs on six hits and a walk through six innings.

BLUE JAYS NOTES:Ricky Romero will make his first start of the season on Saturday with Class-A Dunedin. Romero, last season’s opening-day starter who failed to make the big-league club out of spring training, has spent the last month working with Dane Johnson — the Jays’ roving pitching instructor — on altering his delivery in the hopes of improving his wayward command. …DH Adam Lind is on leave until Sunday following the birth of his second child, a boy. ... Right-handed reliever Brad Lincoln was called up from Triple-A Buffalo to take Lind’s place on the roster, since the Jays’ bullpen has been taxed heavily of late. Only the Houston Astros have used their bullpen more than the Jays so far this season.

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